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  • Konfessionskonflikt, Kirchenstruktur, Kulturwandel. Die Jesuiten im Reich nach 1556
  • Robert Bireley S.J.
Konfessionskonflikt, Kirchenstruktur, Kulturwandel. Die Jesuiten im Reich nach 1556. Edited by Rolf Decot. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung für abendländische Religionsgeschichte, Beiheft 77.] (Mainz: Verlag Philip von Zabern. 2007. Pp. x, 222. €39,90. ISBN 978-3-805-33820-2.)

This volume contains ten papers from an international symposium held at Mainz on October 5–6, 2006, commemorating the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius Loyola as well as of the foundation of the German Province of the Society of Jesus. The Institute for European History in Mainz and the Historisches Seminar of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt cosponsored the event that aimed in particular to provide younger scholars with an opportunity to present their research.

Three papers especially stand out. Paolo Broggio (Rome) in “Roman Doctrinal Orthodoxy and [the] Periphery’s Expectations” investigates the tensions within the Society in the second half of the sixteenth century. At a time when the Ratio Studiorum was forming, theologians were caught between the desire for a uniformity of solid, orthodox doctrine, which was considered important for the Society’s identity, and a legitimate “libertas opinandi.” Sometimes this tension appeared between the Roman College and Jesuit institutions across Europe but even at the Roman College theological positions differed. The Society was much less monolithic than it is often presented in the general literature, the author concludes. This is not a surprise, given the variety of often brilliant and creative minds within the Society at the time. (This contribution, the only one in English, is seriously marred by errors of grammar and usage.) Galaxis Borja González (Hamburg) claims that the network devised by the Jesuits, starting with Ignatius Loyola, for the communication of news and information had no parallel among organizations of early-modern Europe and constituted a modern feature of the Society. This [End Page 388] network ran not only vertically, from the superior general to the furthest mission posts across the seas, but also horizontally among Jesuits, especially in the transmission of scientific and scholarly information. Christoph Nebgen (Mainz) shows how Peter Canisius and German Jesuits generally found inspiration for their work in Germany in the letters from India circulated within the Society and how they considered the gains across the seas as compensation for the losses at home. The author cites surveys of young Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits taken by Jerome Nadal between 1540 and 1560 that reveal their strong preference for work in the Indies rather than in Germany, and he notes a decision made in Rome in 1562 not to send German Jesuits to the Indies because of the need at home.

In other contributions, Michael Sievernich, S.J. (Frankfurt/Mainz), considers the pilgrim years of Loyola as an anticipation of the mobility of the Society. Rolf Decot (Mainz) and Albert Kubísta (Prague) look at the origins of the Society in Mainz and Bohemia respectively, and Patrizio Foresta (Frankfurt) does the same for the Jesuits in Germany, with a special emphasis on Peter Canisius’s conscious understanding of himself as the “Apostle of Germany.” Various aspects of anti-Jesuit literature are the topics of Ursula Paintner (Mainz) and Michael Niemetz (Bamberg).The volume closes with a brief, interesting overview of the life and work of Bernhard Duhr, S.J. (1852–1930), the well-known historian of the Jesuits in Germany, by Clemens Brodkorb (Munich).

Robert Bireley S.J.
Loyola University Chicago
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